Illegal immigrants guilty of crimes face deportation

Federal officials plan to step up efforts to deport illegal immigrants who have been jailed for committing crimes in Washington and Oregon.

New teams of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are to be based in Seattle, Yakima, Portland and Eugene, Ore., joining a Medford, Ore., office, although officials won't say how many new agents will be added to the effort in the two states. Nationally, the number is expected to be in the hundreds.

"Aliens that are criminals will be arrested and convicted, and if they're subject to removal, we're going to get to them before they get back on the street," Neil Clark, field office director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention and removal operations in Seattle, told The Oregonian in Portland.

Agents checking records at jails and prisons can consider the gravity of crimes they encounter, Clark said, but the law gives agents the right to take in any illegal immigrant in the criminal justice system.

"I'm going to accomplish as much as I can," he said. "If I can do the complete workload, I will. If I can't, then I'm going to get to the worst criminals first."

Immigration lawyers agree that high-risk criminals should be deported, but they say the agency should focus on violent criminals rather than spend resources on shoplifters and identity thieves.

Others say the agency's campaign might encourage police to go after illegal immigrants or discourage immigrants from reporting crimes such as domestic violence because they fear their own deportations.

Lawyers handling criminal immigrant cases say the Northwest system is at capacity.

The federal detention center in Tacoma is nearing its 1,000-person capacity three years after it opened.

To help handle the increased load in the Northwest, two judges will be added at the end of the summer, said Lori Dankers, an immigration agency spokeswoman.